From the Twitter Thread: Casey Hudson's Bioware Update, new post 5/10

Thanks to Hrungr for posting this!

Studio Update from Casey Hudson
by Author - Casey HudsonPosted on - April 16, 2018
blog.bioware.com/2018/04/16/studio-update-from-casey-hudson/



Humans! It’s going to be an exciting year. There’s so much going on that I wanted to set up a blog where I can share some thoughts and news with you directly. This is the first entry in a series where I’d like to talk about our vision for BioWare, what that means for our upcoming titles, and share some stories about development as we head towards the launch of Anthem.

I started at BioWare 20 years ago. I’ve worked on several of our titles, most notably as the Producer/Director of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect Trilogy. A few years ago, I took some time away to try something different, and had an amazing experience working at Microsoft on mixed-reality and HoloLens. But the Great White North called me home once again when I was offered the opportunity to return to BioWare as General Manager. The idea of leading the company that I was part of building for so long, and returning to work on the game worlds that I love, was one I couldn’t pass up.

When I returned to BioWare last summer, Mass Effect: Andromeda had just been released and there was a significant movement among players asking for a story DLC that would answer questions surrounding the fate of the quarians. As you know, we were not able to deliver story DLC for Andromeda—this was as frustrating for us as it was for players, and it was something we knew we had to solve in future games.

That experience ultimately became a defining moment in refocusing BioWare’s mission. We need to delight players with new experiences and innovation, but we must stay focused on the importance of the world, character, and storytelling elements that players expect from our games. And our games must be designed to continue delivering new stories and experiences, in an ongoing relationship with players in the worlds we’re evolving together.

It’s in that spirit that we are working through production on Anthem–a game designed to create a whole new world of story and character that you can experience with friends in an ongoing series of adventures. It will be unlike anything you’ve played, but if we do it right, it will feel very distinctly BioWare.

Next time I’ll talk more about how our updated studio mission is helping to focus our work on Anthem and the games that will follow!



May 10, 2018 12:08:33 GMT -4 Hrungr said:
Creating Worlds: The Future of BioWare
by Author - Casey Hudson Posted on - May 10, 2018
blog.bioware.com/2018/05/10/creating-worlds-the-future-of-bioware/

static.cdn.ea.com/blog.bioware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BlogCover-1024x576.jpg

Fellow humans. Welcome to Part 2 of a 1200-part monthly blog series, where I’ll cover BioWare’s evolution from videogame studio to post-human AI hivemind. Today I want to talk about our vision for BioWare.

Videogames are a unique medium. The only thing that stays the same is that they are constantly evolving. Many of the things we love about games now were not possible a few years ago. And that’s one of the hardest things about making games—continuing to innovate and evolve, while staying true to expectations players have from previous experiences.

To ensure we stay on course, we’ve updated our mission statement at BioWare to something that we believe is true of our best games, and must continue to be true of future BioWare games—even as we take on new technologies and gameplay innovations. Our mission is this:

We create worlds of adventure, conflict, and companionship that inspire you to become the hero of your story.

Each word of this mission is carefully chosen. For Example, we believe what we do is first and foremost about creating worlds. Beyond just individual games, we try to create entire worlds that players can really live in, which span many games and media, as well as fan-created work like art, fiction, and cosplay. Creating worlds along with our player community, and seeing them take on a life of their own, is probably the most rewarding part of what we do.

Companionship means that our stories are always presented as shared experiences. You’re not a solitary character walking around by yourself—in a BioWare game you’re always adventuring with a group of friends. Sometimes those friends are other players like in Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. Sometimes they are fictional characters, like in Mass Effect and Dragon Age. However we design it, we always want to capture the special feeling of being on a journey with memorable companions.

I talked last time about Anthem being “a story you can experience with friends.” There were, understandably, some questions and concerns about story in multiplayer. Specifically, “what if I don’t want to play with randos?” “What if I don’t have friends that I play games with?” And, “I like to be the one making choices in my story—if it’s multiplayer, won’t the story get watered down?”

As a player, I worry about these things too—which brings us to the last line of our mission: become the hero of your story. In a BioWare game, you should feel like the story is about you. You create your own character, you decide what happens next, and you become the hero. I think the reason people are concerned about whether these things are possible in a multiplayer game is because it just hasn’t been solved well before.

With Anthem we’re taking this problem head-on and structuring the entire game design to provide a specific solution for this. We’ll be sharing details on how it works very soon. We think it creates a unique experience where you have control over your own story, but your story is set in an ever-changing multiplayer world. And yes, even though Anthem is meant to bring out the best parts of playing as part of an online community, you can choose to play through the story with only your friends, or even on your own.

It’s true—we’re trying something really different here. Anthem represents one way to deliver innovation and new experiences in the spirit of our mission. We also have teams envisioning future BioWare games, and they’re designing approaches that are different from Anthem—including one that’s very Dragon Age. As we try new things, I hope that you’ll come on the journey with us, and continue asking questions that will help shape Anthem into something we’ll all love to play.

In a few weeks, we will be showing Anthem live to fans at EA PLAY in Hollywood and will have lots more details to share. The team is working super hard to get ready, and I can’t wait to hear what you think!

Hope to see you there,

Casey